Archive for the ‘ Journal ’ Category

Todays Lesson in Writing: The Writer’s Button Box

In Twilight’s Child (Rewrite) I ran into a problem/opportunity, they can be indistinguishable. I had removed an entire subplot. In brief, the Protagonist, Alec Thisbe, has a sister who was a “seventh son,” the seventh son of the seventh son down seven generations.
Yes, she is female and I have changed the rules to reflect that mortals, as opposed to the Fae, got it wrong. Every firstborn of her family line back seven generations was female, so she has the innate ability to use Fae Glamour (Magic).
I wrote her subplot because my protagonist for this first novel is a Changeling, an immortal Fae left in the crib in the place of a mortal child taken as a hostage in the Tithe to Hell.
I deleted the subplot because I had toyed with writing for a younger audience. I have changed my mind, so his older sister is in, and her dalliance with Puck is back in.

Now, I had thought I deleted those scenes, and it would have been a real pain in the tuchus to rewrite. I just pulled them out of an early copy of the novel.

Every thing I’ve written has had scenes or paragraphs deleted. I have a file where I keep those old versions. I consider it like keeping button box. Because I am old as dirt, I will explain for those who do not understand the reference in this throw away age.

My mother and grandmother kept buttons off old clothes or spares when they had to buy buttons in a box. When one of us kids would lose a button, an event so regular as to be the norm, they would have a source of buttons to make repairs.

My writer’s button box came to my rescue.

On the Vanishing Habits Habitat

I am not a member of alliteration anonymous. Just thought I would write that.

I have discovered that the phrase, Old Habits Die Hard, is, at best, inaccurate. For some weeks, I kept my daily blog for weeks—weeks I tell you — and then ran into articles that told me I did it wrong. I’ve discovered Blogging daily had become a part of my discipline, and without it, I faltered.

I did not stop writing, but I have found it more difficult without this daily habit. Today, this afternoon actually, I chose to dump the way I am supposed to do this and move back to a daily post.

Twilight’s Child Progress

I have slammed up against one of my lousy habits with Twilight’s Child (the name may change). I now finish novels; now I need to learn to edit them. I am having trouble. Other than a few ongoing projects, I intend to bull my way through. If I can’t read through it who will, after all?

Writer’s Boot Camp

The Boot Camp goes well. Having done it before, these early phases are a bit of a chore, but it changes a bit from run to run and we will soon be over this phase.

A Cat by Any Other Name

I began a short story, A Cat by Any Other Name, and wrote 504 words. I expect it to hit 2000. Oddly, it started as a Fan Fiction for Forgotten Realms. One thing led to another. I am gong to start writing Fan Fiction and posting things on Fan Fiction sites to get people to know my name.

A Quick Goodnight in the Morning

After midnight, so, technically, it is morning.
Haven’t slept yet, and it’s just me wasting electricity with lights on downstairs.

I wrote a two thousand word short story this weekend. I have made progress with Twilight’s Child’s rewrite. Wrote some in Walking Shadows. Workwise, I could have done more, but weekends are family time, and it is difficult, as I keep telling my friends on FaceBook.

This week, I allowed my blog to lapse, becasue I get the idea that I am not doing it correctly.

This is a slip back into the past. This is how I do it now. I will get better.
Goodnight.

A Writer’s Bootcamp and Other Exercises

JaCol Publishing‘s Bootcamp for Writers

My publisher, Randall Andrews, and his company JaCol Publishing hold boot camps for writers. I’ve taken done this before, twice. I wrote my first novel, Shift, during a boot camp, and the wrote the bulk of my WIP Shadow Walkers in another. Having the means, and recognizing that I spend more in coffee in a month that than the cost per month of his course I chose to go through this again.

Of course, I will write the sequel to Shift (Title will be a single wort, but I haven’t a clue yet.). Apart from the novel, the boot camp puts me in contact with a group of talented writers and provides an excellent workout to remove those unsightly flabby adjectives from my prose.

An Author’s Platform

This morning, Toni Crowe’s excellent ‘“When Does This Get Easy?” — The Myth Of Author Platform‘ documented the frustrations of building an Author’s Platform, provided a primer to follow her successes and left me envious as hell of her drive.
When I published Shift, I had no idea what an Author’s Platform might be. I dreamed of writing and publishing a book and waiting for the accolades to roll in. I should have realized that books, being oblong with edges did not roll all that well. I am playing catch up without a guide.
Her article comes with a series of steps that I intend to follow. I will report on those efforts as they occur.

Elon Musk’s Stainless Steel Starship (ExtremeTech)

If you ever read or enjoyed images of ships from the Golden and Silver Age of Science Fiction, you would have seen silver rockets sitting on their fins.
Elon Musk’s BFR/Starship resembles those designs, but not our of engineering nostalgia. Stainless steel is their go-to material for good reasons, as Ryan Whitwam of Extreme Tech Explains.

“SpaceX is working on the initial prototype of the Starship rocket (formerly BFR) that could eventually carry people to the moon and Mars. However, CEO Elon Musk recently announced a significant design revision that seems counterintuitive at first. Instead of aluminum and carbon fiber, the company has decided to build the Starship out of stainless steel. Now, he’s explaining why. “

“Elon Musk Explains Why the Starship Will Be Stainless Steel” By Ryan Whitwam on January 24, 2019 at 8:17 am (https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/284346-elon-musk-explains-why-the-starship-will-be-stainless-steel

Do I Need to Redesign My Website?

Went looking for writers on WordPress, the agenda being to follow them, and when it is appropriate, quote them on the site to get exposure for my website. I found “26 Best Minimalist WordPress Themes for Writers,” which indicates websites that are better for reading and easy to manage.
I suspect that I need to research writers’ websites and make mine more like theirs.

What am I Waiting For?

I have four complete novels, along with my writing, I am going to edit them and get them ready for Beta Readers and publishing.

Not Never on Sunday, but Almost

Writing on Sunday’s is difficult. Family, you know. The pull your heartstrings, drag you this way, that way. My wife, tried of the entire family, minus the dog (herself include) spending time our time in different rooms on different computers doing different things is unhealthy.
She is right, of course, but don’t tell her I said.

A writer, has all this stuff in his brain, the story threatening to blow out his forehead if he does not release the pressure through his fingers.

I did a bit, pecked through the screen on my tablet. I wrote a poem this morning, “A Writer on Any Given Sunday.” I added five hundred words, give or take, to Shadow Walkers.
Not enough to please my restless mind.
Now, late at night, I can work for a while, now that the call of the blog has been answered.

Writer’s Log 01.27.2019 – 1055

Yesterday I faced the beast embodied in a big photo of the seat of my pants. Non-obligatory pantser joke. Realizing my novel went in the wrong direction, I backed up and figured out where I went wrong. I asked questions about motivation, conflict, how scenes contribute to the end.
I’m losing some words, but it will be a better book.

STOP THE PRESSES!!! I DID NOT TAKE MY MED!!!

I know that may seem hyperbolic, but anti-depressants put my mind together, and without it, I will be mired in self-doubt and playing Wizard 101 for hours between starting a new novel every other day before flushing it down the crapper. There but for the grace of Doctor Sitapati go I.
Some may be taken aback by my confession. Some may label me weak, or crazy, or DEPRESSED, which society often considers worse than the others.
If they break an arm, they see a doctor. No harm no foul.
If they have cancer, they see a much more expensive doctor. It’s their health, and there is no shame in taking care of themselves.
People who are depressed, or suicidal, or schizophrenic, or labeled as having some emotional problem, should tough it out. THAT IS WRONG! If you are sick, you are sick. Don’t be shamed or feel ashamed. GET HELLP!

Now to get to work.

Writer’s Log 01.26.2019 2230

Medicine tastes yucky, even literary medicine.
My foray into Pantsing a novel is not dead, but it took a nasty shock when I discovered that I had no idea what I was doing. I was simply writing what came next, without worrying about why it came next or how it contributed to the story.

So not I am taking my literary medicine. I’ve taken small changes to chapter 1 and 2 while rewriting chapter 3. I have a working way of handling the problems I introduced without a real plan.

Achievable Goals

This morning, I continue officially writing two Novellas at the same time for two different Series. One of them, Skyjacker, I’ve set my goal to 1000 words a day, minimum. Only once since I started have I failed to reach that goal. Even the most difficult days (weekends mostly) I managed to find time in my day to complete the task and more. Beginning yesterday, I took up Spell Thief, fantasy Novella Series. After writing around between 1500 and 2000 words in Starjacker, I wrote five hundred in Spell Thief.
This morning, I wrote 500 words in Spell Thief, no problem. My Achievable goal for that Novella has been reached. I can now move on to write in Starjacker.
Lest I forget, I started this post.
Another thing I need to do is edit Chennizzi.

(1) Starjacker, Part I of Knowledge’s Ashes is 14,246 words in length.
(2) Old God’s Shadow, Part I of Spell Thief 8772 words.

I now, some people will call me seven kinds of fool for writing o novels at the same time. But, hey, it can’t hurt to try.

Sometimes Things Break Down

Lady Ven Aleyo
Creative Commons PIxabay

Monday’s post was late because I forgot to publish. Yesterday, I wrote most of a new chapter 1 of Starjackers, and set up a series in Medium (You need to do another) and now I am trying to catch up.

I lost count of how much I wrote today, though I appear to be around 1500+ words on StarJackers. I also added the Romance subplot. Ven Aleyo has changed from my original idea and is now a Subspecies living on the colony of Venice, a mostly water world with cites built around the few pieces of ground that rise above the waves of floating cities. As I see the planet, It is an old world where plate tectonics has ceased.

In Medium, I have created to Series that are used to showcase the articles and stories. I am happy with those.

Wow. I made a snap decision to finish Spell Thief as another Novella, eventually reaching about 35 thousand words. It took me a bit to get into it, but once I started, I think it came along very well. Spell Thief was going to be the first of a fantasy series, anyway, and it is a perfect match to Starjackers. I am setting my goal with Spell Thief to 500 words a day.

Today, I wrote well in excess of 2000 words. I admit that I am very happy where things are heading. I really want to reach a point where I have several books in Amazon, and hopefully start bringing in a bit of money.

Writer’s Log 01.16.2019 – 0859

One day I’m dancing in the rain and singing “Everything’s coming up roses,” and the next there is this headache dead center of my third eye. But that is no excuse. Time to write, tickle the keyboard, drive the nib of my men into my wrist and bleed fiction.
So bear with me, please, several things I want to do.

Plot+Character=Theme
How to use theme in writing.
Plot+Character=Theme
Using Them in writing.

The first goal is to work on an article for Medium on a theme in literature. I have been avoiding this like the plague. (Cliche alert!) Going on, I think I am going to use this as a sounding board for my understanding of the subject, which I admit is not very significant.
The image above, which I saw posted by a friend and writer, Anna Dobritt, author of the Ravynwyng Chronicles, links together three critical aspects of literature.
I have a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing, and no teacher ever explained it to me in this way. Before, I remained blind to the theme, thinking of it as the “moral of the story,” which it is not.
One of the primary themes in Harry Potter was

NOTE: I did not get far with this today. Tomorrow, I will make progress.

“Literary theorist Roger Fowler notes that: “A theme is always a subject, but a subject is not always a theme: a theme is not usually thought of as the occasion of a work of art, but rather a branch of the subject which is indirectly expressed through the recurrence of certain events, images or symbols. We apprehend the theme by inference – it is the rationale of the images and symbols, not their quantity.”
Harry Potter and the surprisingly poignant literary theme

Writer’s Log Supplemental: 1648 wrote 1521 words on the Novella. it is going very well. I even succeeded in screwing around for a while.
Next month, I intend to take Randall’s Bootcamp and use it to write a sequel to Shift.

Writer’s Log Supplemental: 2156 An interesting evening, and I’ve made one serious decision. I have so many short stories, I intend to publish a book about 100 pages long. Thanks, Angela L. Lindseth. (Check out her published works. Sanity’s Threshold, Unconfined Delusions, and more.)

Busy day. Goodnight, y’all.

Resources: Theme (narrative)
The Literary Element of Theme
What is Theme in Literature?
Literary Themes
Wordcloud